ECN takes leading role together with Dutch Industry in Offshore Wind Farm Innovation

ECN, RWE Offshore Wind, Eneco, TenneT, Ballast Nedam, Van Oord, IHC Merwede, 2-B Energy, XEMC Darwind and TU Delft are pioneering a large scale innovation programme for the development of a large-scale remote offshore wind energy farm (Far and Large Offshore Wind, FLOW). The plan was presented yesterday by Hans de Boer, member of Innovation Platform, to Minister of Economic Affairs Van der Hoeven.

The plan comprises both an R&D programme and a demonstration wind farm far off the Dutch coast. There are currently no wind farms operating at this depth and distance from the coast anywhere in the world.

Bert Janssen about FLOW: ”In FLOW the R&D plan is actually integrated into the development, the operation and maintenance of the demonstration wind farm. In top of that some locations in the wind farm will be available for the demonstration and validation of innovative concepts that are developed in the R&D plan. The integration of such a R&D plan and a demo wind farm is unique in the world and offers excellent possibilities for the development of the Dutch offshore wind sector.

ECN will participate in many of the research and development lines that have been described in the plan. Amongst others ECN will be involved in the wind and wave measurements on the meteo mast, the optimization of the farm layout and the electrical infrastructure, the innovative turbine developments, the maintenance strategy and the wind farm monitoring.”

FLOW will bring a new impulse to wind energy research in the Netherlands.